Trentoniana Hours

Monday - Friday 
9:00 am to 5:00 pm

... But Always Please Call in Advance!

What Is Trentoniana?

The main branch of the Trenton Public Library is home to Trentoniana, an enormous local history and genealogy collection. Trentoniana's holdings include photographs, manuscripts, scrapbooks, trade cards, postcards, diaries and maps that help researchers explore the rich history of Trenton, New Jersey.

Trentoniana's collection includes the most extensive representation of Trenton histories, books, monographs, serials, scrapbooks, periodicals, pamphlets, etc. A significant portion of this collection consists of local newspapers (most on microfilm) printed in Trenton from 1777 to the present. Several indexes to parts of the collection are available.

Photograph Collection

The Trentoniana photograph collection highlights various Trenton street scenes, landmark buildings, portraits, etc. It consists of major Trenton postcard, lantern slide, and portrait collections, as well as various photographic scrapbooks. Another portion of the photographic collection is made up of the Trenton Tax Assessor Office (TAO) Records. This collection, developed by the City of Trenton's Tax Assessor's Office, documents nearly every property, dwelling and industrial site within the city in 1936 with a photograph and descriptive card.

Manuscript Collection

Trentoniana's manuscript collection, some of which is on microfilm, includes a wide variety of records and papers of business, government and voluntary associations, as well as some personal papers, legal documents and local histories. Among the larger holdings is an extensive collection of records of local labor unions and Trenton volunteer fire companies. A substantial portion of the collection includes Trenton area business, as well as church, cemetery and voluntary association records, diaries and family papers, genealogies, legal documents, maps and other materials.

For further information about Trentoniana's collection, contact the historian at (609) 695-7048, extension 20, or send e-mail to gref@trentonlib.org.